The October Surprise: Local Astroturfing

This is new?

He doesn't serve my district but I feel it is always best to have extreme, polarizing views on issues.

I agree with you Edgeways, the fallout of this could be detrimental to his bid for commish! What will this scandal do to his son's bid? 

I say this all in a tongue and cheek manner -- this is more common than we can guess. More importantly, we should be following Scannell's recent arrest. Was anything linked to his shooting and his own transgressions?

Very special...

It's hilarious that the DNT editors are "shocked, shocked" that such a thing has happened. Give me a break. I always write my own LTEs but I know it's a pretty common practice during political campaigns for a few people to write a bunch of letters and circulate them around for someone to sign. 

What really pisses me off is that the DNT is going to refuse to consider for publication any future LTEs by this woman, but will only regard with "suspicion" and "skepticism" any future LTEs written by Stauber. As far as I am concerned, Stauber was the instigator. He should no longer be allowed to have his LTEs published either, and for the rest of this campaign, any LTE written on his behalf should be carefully scrutinized, if not just simply chucked. He's getting off with a mere wrist slap, and the woman is being much more seriously penalized.

It hardly seems that this is worthy of anyone being banned from future letter writing.  If the letter was expressing her feelings and beliefs, what's the problem?  Many people aren't comfortable writing these letters, and often someone else helps, or even writes them.  There was no intention to mislead anyone about her views, which is the point of the letters section anyway.  She should not be banned in the future if she chooses to submit someone else's letter over her signature, because it better tells her story than she thinks she can; who cares?  As for viewing his letters with suspicion in the future; that's pointless.  Why?  He's proven he can write a letter - that's what got him in to trouble.

The fact that this type of thing is rampant is all the more reason for newspapers to crack down on it.

It's not ideal that one guy got kicked in the pants for doing something his opponents may have also done, but at least a precedent has been set for not tolerating it and holding people accountable for it. So instead of politicians feeling obligated to coerce people into writing letters because the other candidates are doing it, they will instead fear the repercussions.